EDIT: wouldn’t you know it? I spend hours trying to figure this out, write up my first post for the forums, and then fifteen minutes later, I discover the “full rebuild” option next to the Compile button. That fixed it! I guess Unreal’s compiler isn’t always able to figure out which parts of the system need to be recompiled when changes are made.
Full post remains below, for posterity.
I’m learning to use Niagara, and I’m experiencing some unusual behavior that I can’t explain. Specifically, I made a simple pixelated fire effect, which consists of 5 emitters, and Unreal is only simulating 4 of them. If they’re all enabled, the 5th isn’t simulated; if I turn any of the other emitters off, then the 5th starts being simulated again.
The emitters are:
1: An offset emitter, which generates particles in a random volume that immediately die.
2 and 3: emitters that listen to the death event from (1) and generate bursts of red particles in two styles
4 and 5: orange and white particles that draw on top of the red.
All told, there’s about 800 particles active at any time.
(here, the (3) emitter is disabled)
As a further oddity, I tried changing the (2) and (3) emitters to not use the death event, and disabled the (1) emitter; this results in only the (4) and (5) emitters simulating! If I then delete the (1) emitter, then (2) and (3) start simulating, even though (1) was disabled!
I am super confused, and would appreciate any advice or assistance. And to be clear, I certainly believe that I could optimize this effect to use fewer emitters, and I understand that that is recommended. But I would also like to understand why I’m seeing the behavior that I am.
Thank you!